


Of Israelites, feathers and plucked pigeons

by Remy (iamremy)



Category: Cal Leandros - Rob Thurman
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/Remy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin sputtered, “Please. As if you weren’t chased over sand dunes by a band of Israelites desperate for a holy souvenir. They plucked you like a chicken. You looked like a mangy pigeon when I found you.”</p>
<p>Looking less like Niko by the second, because where Niko’s anger was cold, Ishiah’s was red-hot, Ishiah said dangerously, “I did <em>not</em>.”</p>
<p><em>Deathwish</em>, ch. 13</p>
<hr/>
<p>A short account of one of the most entertaining-slash-infuriating days of Robin's long, long life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Israelites, feathers and plucked pigeons

**Author's Note:**

> So I reread _Deathwish_ , and the end of chapter 13 planted this idea in my head and it refused to leave until I forcefully evicted it, i.e. finally wrote it down. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

There was something about deserts that just really depressed me. And that was _unnatural_ , because I, a puck, should not be depressed in general. I should live a life of debauchery and luxury. I should _not_ be trawling through the sand, bored as all Hades, wondering if it would be too much to ask for the _gamou_ desert to end or for my life if not the desert.

For Zeus’s sake, I was promised a fantastic orgy, not this – this _trial_ of my very patience. So far it had been five hours in the _gamou_ place and not a single person in sight, virgin or otherwise. The next time someone invited me to an orgy in a “secret” tent in the middle of the desert without more specific instructions, I would just lop their head off.

Knowing that if I’d taken a second out of my lust-filled daydreams to ask the man _where_ exactly the bloody tent was and how to access it, I wouldn’t be in this predicament… it didn’t improve my mood at all. Made it worse, actually. I angrily kicked at the sand, then growled deep in my throat when the only result was getting sand in my hair and eyes. My clothes were getting rumpled and dusty, and _that_ , more than anything, was _unforgivable_. If I ever saw that piece of _skata_ merchant again I would kick his ass into the next century, no matter how finely shaped it was.

Things were beginning to look pretty bleak – well, bleaker than they already were, what with the ruined clothes and everything – when suddenly I heard a shout. Perking up – shouting could only mean either a fight or sex, and I was always down for both – I turned my head in the direction where it came from. I couldn’t see anything for now, thanks to the _gamou_ sand dunes everywhere, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the shouting party came into view.

There was another shout, and yes, this one did sound closer indeed. It seemed to be coming from the west, and so I changed my course to that direction, picking up my pace with a swing in my step. The sound was still too far away for me to determine if it was the result of a fight or sex, but that really didn’t matter to me. Again, I was down for both, and they would be a welcome distraction from my pointless roaming in the stupid desert. At least it wouldn’t be a _complete_ waste of time, and it might just save that merchant’s life (which was good, as a body so finely toned as his was much better alive than dead).

The third shout, very close indeed, told me that this was neither a fight nor sex, which was disappointing. But before I had time to ruminate on this, the person responsible for all of it appeared on the top of the sand dune and down, running as fast as he could while simultaneously trying not to get both his feet buried to the calf in the loose sand.

I grinned ear to ear, what would later come to be known as the fox in a henhouse smile. I invented the expression, and the phrase that described it, after all. My mood instantly lifted. _This_ was better than both sex and a good fight, by a considerable margin, and those are words I didn’t usually say, so when I _did_ say them it meant I was serious about them.

Oh, this was going to be amazing indeed. Maybe my one unfulfilled wish in this world would come true.

Running towards me, wearing nothing but a loincloth that barely covered anything at all.

Calling my name, sounding desperate and—

Terrified. He sounded terrified. I sighed to myself. So he wasn’t running to come sweep me off my feet and have amazing sex with me, after around a thousand years of trying to persuade him. Pity.

“Robin!” he called – all but wailed, actually. “Robin, _help_ me!”

He was still a few yards away from me, but close enough to hear me when I said, “Unless this help involves me, you, a bed and no clothing, I’m not interested.”

He shot me a dirty look as he skidded to a stop beside me, throwing sand all over my feet. I yelped as the fine, gritty particles filled my shoes and got in between my toes, but Ishiah didn’t look sorry at all, the bastard.

“I need your help,” he said to me, and now that he wasn’t running he sounded more like himself. All gruff and firm and full of pride.

“What is it?” I asked, feigning a bored tone. Never let them know you’re into them, it’ll only make them that much harder to talk into your pants.

“I’m being... chased,” he said – huffed, more accurately – looking more than just a little annoyed. “I need a place to hide, at least for a little while.”

I snorted, and waved an arm in a sweeping gesture to encompass the whole of the desert in our sights. Nothing but sand from horizon to horizon, as far as you could see. “When you find a good hiding place here, let me know.”

He scowled. “Robin—" he began, but immediately stopped talking when another figure appeared on the sand dune he’d run over to get to me.

“There!” shouted the figure, and began running towards us. A few seconds later he was joined by more men, a large group of them. They were unarmed, so I really could not comprehend the alarmed expression on Ishiah’s face.

“Robin, _please_ ,” he hissed, looking mortified at that last word he had to utter. “Now would be a good time to stop talking and start helping.”

I feigned an innocent look, one I know would never work (it never did, but maybe one day I’d get there), and said, “But you’re the one who says we’re an extremely useless race, good for only humping everything in sight and spreading disease, which is factually incorrect, by the way. How could I, the best of that race, possibly help you?” I didn’t bat my eyelashes, but it was close.

He looked a mixture of irritated and frantic, a very entertaining expression. “You _know_ I don’t—”

“Don’t what?” I interrupted, grinning deviously. “Don’t mean it?”

“No, that’s not what I—”

The band of people was getting closer, and by now I could make out their features and their clothing. I could also make out what they were shouting, not in anger but in reverence, and my grin, if possible, widened even more. “Oh, I _see_. You’re being chased by eager Israelites who want nothing more than to get a closer look at such a holy being as yourself.”

Ishiah looked over my shoulder to the band of approaching Israelites, and then back at me. “Look, Robin, if you don’t want to help me, just say so.”

“Why do you think I’ll help you anyway?” I asked, enjoying every second of this. “All you ever do is try to make me give up everything that makes my life worth living. Why should I listen to you?”

Ishiah growled deep in his throat. He looked very close to either strangling me with his bare hands, or tearing his own hair out. Which would be a pity – I’d always had a weakness for blonds, and Ishiah was a magnificent example, with that windswept shoulder-length pale blond hair that I would kill to get my hands in—

Ishiah began to say something, but then he caught sight of the Israelites again, over my shoulder (I would normally hate being that much shorter than him, but he made it look hot, such as he was, and all I could think of was him and me against a wall somewhere, doing things that would give any witness a heart attack out of pure mortification that it was even possible for that level of depravity to exist). His expression morphed from irritation to despair, and he muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “I’ll be damned”– a glorious blasphemy coming from an angel, I was so proud – before turning tail and running.

I watched his figure recede into the distance, paying close – oh, _very_ close – attention to his backside as he ran. When the Israelites caught up to me, I pointed lazily, grinned and said, “He went that way. How close is your village, by the way? And how many virgins of either gender does it contain?”

Unfortunately they completely disregarded my questions, paying mind only to my first sentence, and running in the direction I was pointing in. I watched them close in on Ishiah, still grinning. They were fast, quite impressively so, and within minutes they’d caught up to him. I wondered how he’d managed to evade them long enough to talk to me – they were quite dedicated and dedication is directly proportional to motivation. And a motivated person could do just about anything – trust me, I’d know. I did invent no less than three hundred and sixty nine sexual positions. More, probably, that I couldn’t remember.

I trailed after them, walking as fast as I could without losing my step in the sand. This I wanted to see. It took me perhaps three minutes to get to them – like I’d said, motivation – and I arrived to see Ishiah completely surrounded by the men, who numbered forty or so. He caught me looking and shot me a desperate look, clearly pleading for help, and I smiled back pleasantly before sitting down in the sand, crossing my legs and putting my elbows on my knees, face in my hands. In other words, settling in to enjoy what would no doubt be a good show.

One of the men – the leader, from his slightly better garb – stepped forward to Ishiah and bowed almost to the ground. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was no doubt something very polite and full of worship. Ishiah looked uncomfortable, which in turn upped my happiness quotient even more. I hadn’t been wrong – this was better than sex or a fight, any day.

The man continued talking, his followers nodding and occasionally adding their own reverent words, bowing up and down so much it almost gave me secondhand back strain just to see it. Ishiah’s look of discomfort deepened, and he opened his mouth to say something, making them all fall silent immediately so they could hear what he had to say. It was very abrupt, and almost eerie, how quickly the raucous babble of excited voices fell away to dead silence, and all I could hear was the desert wind.

Whatever he said, they seemed to misinterpret, as the overly religious often do. To Ishiah’s evident distress they tightened the circle around him, almost obscuring him from view. I sat up a little straighter, trying to figure out what they were doing and not really succeeding, but I couldn’t be bothered to stand and go into the crowd to see. I would find out in a minute or two anyway, when Ishiah inevitably managed to shake them off to make his escape.

Shake them off he would, no doubt about that. The only reason he hadn’t done it yet was because he didn’t want to hurt them, freaky though they were being. Beginning to get bored, I began checking my nails for any signs of disrepair, occasionally cleaning out the sand from under them carefully with the tip of my knife.

I’d just moved on to brushing sand off my clothes – a useless endeavor, but it never hurt to try – when I heard what sounded like a small, pained yelp. I looked up from my trousers to see one of the men victoriously brandishing a long, white feather, barred with gold – Ishiah’s. The angel had probably tried to fly away, only to be plucked like a chicken.

I snickered. This was just getting better and better.

“For God’s sake, Robin!” Ishiah shouted over the din of excited voices, and he sounded the most desperate yet – he had to be, to take the Lord’s name in vain and all that. Or was it in vain? He _was_ in need… sort of.

“Not my God, remember?” I said cheerfully, with a little wave of my fingers.

I had no doubt at all that at some point in the future Ishiah would do his best to hunt me down and make me pay for this, but I was enjoying the moment too much to let thoughts of future retribution ruin this. More and more Israelites had feathers in their hands, some having even two or three or ten. They had balls, I had to admit – not many humans saw an angel and decided to pluck him, knowing full well he could plant a fiery sword up their asses any moment. These particular ones were just lucky that the angel they’d run into was less violently inclined than most of his brethren… usually.

Maybe today was the day that changed.

Or not.

I saw that the next moment, when all of the Israelites dispersed as quickly as they’d appeared, making off at full speed with armfuls of white and gold feathers. They ran off even faster than they had to catch him, and while I knew that he wouldn’t go after them – too _gamou_ noble for that, my Ishiah – I also knew that he was probably seriously considering it.

I watched them leave before turning my head to find Ishiah sitting in the sand a few meters away from me, looking utterly resigned. He didn’t even look angry or desperate anymore, just resigned, as if he’d accepted his fate. Just as well, too, because there wasn’t much he could do about this.

I snickered again. His wings were out of sight, but if they were anything like his visible state – hair a mess, skin covered in light scratches where the Israelites had accidentally dragged their nails in an effort to reach the feathers, and, to my utter delight, loincloth misplaced. He caught me looking and followed my line of sight down to his crotch, before growling and fixing it. Pity. Still, I’d gotten a great view, one that I was going to savor for as long as I could, and there wasn’t anything he could do about that.

“Every reservation I had about your race, you just proved right,” he called to me, a line appearing between his dark eyebrows as he scowled.

“What, you needed proof all this while?” I pretended to be shocked. “I must not have been drinking and whoring about enough, then. Don’t worry, that can be easily fixed.”

His scowl deepened. “You’re enjoying this, you horny, oversexed goat.”

I waved the insults off – not like they were anything new, after all. “Of course I am. And really, you need to come up with better insults, these are getting old. They’re not that creative anyway. If you’re looking for new things to call me, I can suggest a few.”

“I don’t want to hear them,” he growled. “What I _do_ want is a place to go while I can heal, preferably someplace with no people. Would you happen to know of such a place?”

I got to my feet, walked over to him and sat down facing him. I deliberately took up as much of his personal space as I could – our knees were touching, and there was barely two feet of space between our faces – just to irk him, but to my slight surprise he didn’t move away. Slight, because I’m _me_ , the most gorgeous specimen to walk this planet. He’d have given in to my charms sooner or later, right?

“And why,” I asked, “would I tell you if I knew?”

He didn’t bother replying, just continued scowling at me. I could tell his heart wasn’t in it, though – he was merely going through the motions, because that was just what we did. I tried to proposition him while he griped and bitched at me. That was our dynamic, and I’d devoted countless hours of thought to how it would translate into sex. My opinion was that it would be pretty damn spectacular, but my companion disagreed, prude pigeon that he was.

Speaking of—

“What did they do to your wings?” I asked, trying and failing to hide my grin.

He growled – and _damn_ , that was sexy, even if he was doing it angrily – and, just as I’d expected, his wings appeared, like they always involuntarily did when he was angry. I knew provoking him would be a better way to see them than asking.

They were in spectacularly pathetic shape; apparently the Israelites had decided that they could only have the best, and had therefore plucked out the largest feathers, the more beautiful ones, leaving behind a handful of short feathers with broken stalks, and all of the downy ones which were now visible. Ishiah looked absolutely miserable, probably thinking about how long it would take him to heal this, and how was he supposed to explain this to the rest of the angels anyway? He would never live it down.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t the laugh I did when I was trying to charm someone either – it was loud and happy, _genuine_ laughter, and maybe that made me a dick, but whatever.

“Glad to know I amuse you,” Ishiah muttered, jabbing his elbow into my ribs. Or trying to, anyway – I saw it coming and moved out of the way, still laughing.

“They plucked you bald!” I managed to say, barely able to breathe from the mirth of it all. “You look like a mangy pigeon!”

“And you look like you’re going to be dead very soon,” he retorted, his wings disappearing again. He crossed his arms, his face set in a scowl, his scar twitching as he gritted his teeth.

“Zeus, are you _sulking_?” I questioned in disbelief, wiping tears from my eyes. “You look like a pouty woman.”

“I do _not_ ,” he said dangerously.

I laughed even harder – I just couldn’t help it. The entire situation was nothing short of hilarious, and I was sure I’d remember it for centuries – no, _millennia_ – to come, though Ishiah would undoubtedly disagree. I took a moment to fix the entire incident solidly in my memory, every tiny detail, from the moment I’d heard the first shout to now. I debated embellishing the story some – all the better to tell it to everyone I met – but to my own surprise I decided against it.

Some things I could keep to myself, though I had no doubt Ishiah would vehemently disagree.

I got yet another surprise when I stole a glance at him from the corner of my eye – a small smile on his face, grudging, like he didn’t want to but couldn’t help it. It seemed my mirth was infectious. Or maybe he’d just finally discovered a deeply hidden sense of humor within himself.

“How long will it take you to regrow them?” I asked him, out of something was definitely not concern, waving vaguely behind him to indicate the space his wings usually took when they were visible. “You can’t fly till they do, can you?”

He shook his head, his hair cascading sand onto his shoulders, some of it flying into my eyes. I should have been annoyed, and I was, but mostly I was just… sympathetic wasn’t the word. Amused, I supposed. While also feeling maybe a _little_ bad for him.

Pucks, we’re not quite the assholes everyone assumes us to be. They do assume it with pretty good reason, as Ishiah was quick to point to me whenever he could, but they were not _always_ entirely right in doing so.

“It’ll take a while,” Ishiah told me with a resigned sigh. “No flying until then.”

“Don’t your feathery pals know of a place where you can rest up?” I asked. Almost without thinking about it – _almost_ – I reached out and did what I’d always wanted to do; I put my hand in his hair. It felt just like I’d always thought it would – rough but also somehow fine, soft if not for the sand. To my surprise, Ishiah didn’t shake me off.

Looked like I was finally beginning to grow on him. I smiled internally. And it had only taken a thousand years.

He snorted. “Yes, because I am really going to call my brethren for help, in this state. I’m sure they would _love_ to know all about how I couldn’t fend off a group of overzealous humans.”

I snorted too. “You would probably be demoted from Smiter of the Month to a heavenly janitor. Sweep your pals’ feathers when they molt.”

“We don’t need janitors,” he said distractedly – and with good reason. My hand was still in his hair, even though there was barely any sand left in it that could be gotten out without a thorough scrubbing.

We sat for a few minutes, both of us silent. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I was wondering why he hadn’t threatened to chop my hand off yet. Or at least shaken it off. Still, I was determined to enjoy this for as long as it lasted.

A minute later my hand had dropped from Ishiah’s head to the side of his neck, and my face was inches from his. I’d say I had no idea how it happened, but that would be a lie. And from Ishiah’s face, he knew it too. But my hand remained attached to my arm and Ishiah didn’t say a word, not even to threaten to castrate me, so I took this as encouragement and leaned in closer.

My lips were an inch from his when he spoke. “If you think that just because I haven’t cut your whoring hands off yet you can add me to your long list of sexual conquests, then you are not just stupid, but also horrifically deluded.”

I pulled away, my hand dropping to my knee. This wasn’t by far the worst thing he’d said to me, but it stung in a way I wasn’t used to. “You stupid _gamou_ pigeon,” I hissed, feeling the hot touch of anger in my mind. And we’d been doing so well, too. “If that’s what you think—”

“That’s what I _know_ ,” he said, matter of fact, his face impassive. To look at him now, one would think that the previous conversation had never occurred – the one where we talked somewhat civilly, no insults thrown, no threats of bodily harm, nothing but light banter that I’d been foolish enough to think I wouldn’t mind getting used to.

And I was not, _never_ , a fool. That he had made one of me so easily, with nothing but a few words and the allowance of small gestures, angered me to no end.

I got to my feet and turned my back on him, not looking back even when I heard him stand too. He was still close enough that I could feel the heat of his body on my back, but I was much too furious to care. “Good luck finding a place to rest,” I snapped nastily, before beginning to walk away. I’d planned on helping him out, unbelievable as it was, and I _did_ know a place, but he could shove it up his amazing ass now. And, contrary to what he believed, I hadn’t been thinking of doing it for sex (even though that _was_ a hopeful outcome).

I could feel the intensity of his gaze on my back as I walked away, my hands curled into fists by my sides, nails digging into my palms. A part of me wanted to look back, to see his face and try to gauge what he was thinking, but another part of him hated him with a burning fury right then. He was the first and only person I’d come across who could turn my mood in a second, could make me so angry that I saw red (that was another expression I invented, for the record). He was even more talented in that department than any and all incarnations of Kree, or Caiy, or Patroclus, or whoever he happened to be in whichever life.

I half-expected to hear his voice, but that was another foolish thought and I stamped it down with a vengeance. I would not give him the satisfaction of letting him get to me, even though he had. I would _not_ give him the bloody _gamou_ satisfaction of taking over my thoughts in the manner that he had, of letting him put his hand in a vice around my heart and squeeze it painfully. He had _no_ right, no _gamou_ right, and if I ever saw him again after this – and with my luck, I knew I would – I was going to shove his own flaming sword so far up his ass that it would cut off his _gamou_ tongue.

But maybe I was a fool after all, at least regarding Ishiah – when I’d reached the top of a sand dune, ten minutes later, I couldn’t stop myself from turning around to take a look. The desert was as empty and desolate as it had been some time ago, no angel in sight. So he’d vanished, then. The _gamou_ coward, I thought derisively to myself, before turning around and walking away.

This was what I got, then, for going against my nature and very much against my will to develop feelings for someone. This was what I got, for trying to reach him, for trying to help him. If that was what he _really_ thought despite all evidence to the contrary that I’d given him in the past few minutes, then he was either much more idiotic than I thought, or just an outright bastard. Both, probably – no, _definitely_.

He could go fuck himself, I thought viciously. For all I cared. And I did, as much as I didn’t want to. And – I may lie to everyone and definitely to myself, but I wasn’t going to do so now – I hated myself a little for it. And I hated him a whole lot for making me feel this way, stupid piece of _skata_ overgrown _gamou_ pigeon.

Still, I couldn’t let him have even this much, the anger and fury and bitter thoughts. He didn’t deserve even that much from me, and I sure as Hades wasn’t going to let him have it. So I swallowed down my rage, unclenched my fists, ignored the pain in my palms where I’d drawn blood, and kept on walking.

**Author's Note:**

>  _[tumbleweeds roll across the deserted landscape that is this tiny-ass fandom]_ Feedback would be lovely, although I'm more than aware that by putting this in a place where probably no more than 20 people (if I'm being optimistic) will see it, I'm actually shouting into the void. Eh well.
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> [my tumblr.](http://chesterbennington.co.vu)
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> -Remy x


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